Back in November 2008, I cheered a big win for Massachusetts residents when the court declared that Massachusetts House Bill 4498, which had become law, was unconstitutional. This law had been an impediment to wineries who desired to ship wine to Massachusets residents. When it was declared unconstitutional, there was hope that soon enough, we could order wine directly from wineries. We would be available to purchase a much greater variety of wines, from all over the country.
Well, Attorney General Martha Coakley, has placed a road block in that path. She intends to appeal the court decision to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. Thus, taxpayer money will be spent trying to prevent us from obtaining the wine we wish to order. Seems rather asinine to me. But we are not powerless and can make our wishes known to her.
Please visit Free the Grapes and you will find a message to be sent to the Attorney General, urging her to cease any appeals. You just fill in your personal information and they will fax the letter to her. You can then send on the information to six of your friends, hoping they will do the same. It is very easy to do and I strongly urge you take a couple minutes to do it.
Don't let the Attorney General waste our money fighting the court's decision. We deserve greater choice and there is no legitimate reason to keep these impediments in place.
It's a shame that the Attorney General would try to block this from going into effect. It seems like it's always 2 steps forward, 1 step back with when it comes to shipping wine to MA.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, even if this law *did* go into effect, UPS and FedEx still aren't legally allowed to ship here because each of their trucks is required to be licensed to transport alcohol due to yet another strange and limiting MA law. Changing that will require yet more legislation to be undone (and then likely appealed just like this law).